1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to management of time and expense when communicating between a host and a network. More particularly, the present invention is directed to a method and system for management of time and expense of information access over multiple networks using a host.
2. Description of the Related Art
The World Wide Web (WWW) has surged to prominence since the introduction of graphic browsers. Browsers are software that allow a person to look through information by repeatedly viewing and selecting items. A list of menu items or a page of information is usually provided when browsing. After a user reads the information provided, he or she may then select an item. The browser then follows the reference and retrieves new information. Two very well known Web browsers are NCSA Mosaic(trademark) and Netscape Navigators(trademark).
Users of the Internet and WWW regularly rely on widely distributed resources. Users can add hypertext links to their own documents and compile hotlists. Thus, people have become very reliant on continuous, high-speed, low-cost networks to access information that they need.
In current environments users expect to be connected to a network all the time through a predictable connection that is relatively inexpensive and that generally costs a fixed amount. Users also expect resources to be available continuously. For example, if a document was retrieved a week ago, that document should still be retrievable today. However, expectations and reality are not the same. High-bandwidth, low-cost communications are not ubiquitous. In particular, a mobile user has to deal with multiple networks that use different technologies that exhibit widely differing bandwidths, latency, availability and fee structures. In addition, the user can expect to be disconnected for extended periods of time. Thus, there is no truly transparent way to make a Web browser that runs on a mobile host operate the same as a Web browser that runs on a desktop system.
Because of a user""s expectations, it is imperative that the user should be able to browse the WWW anytime from anywhere whether or not the user is connected to a continuous, high-speed, low-cost network.
Further, mobile users encounter problems in that they access the WWW over multiple networks that have different data rates and fee structures. A number of mobile host systems have been proposed. These include using personal digital assistants (PDAs) as mobile WWW browsers. A PDA functions as a specialized graphical terminal communicating with a dedicated stationary host.
Additionally, powerful notebook class computers have been proposed as platforms for mobile WWW browsing. For the most part, these systems run on a mobile host in conjunction with a dedicated processor running on a stationary server. The system caches data on both a mobile host cache and the stationary server. This reduces wait periods caused by fetching remote documents and supports disconnected operation.
One such system is the Mowgli system which uses HyperText Transport Protocol (HTTP) header compression for improved bandwidth and long-lived connections to avoid slow-start problems associated with the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). Another system is MobiScape which uses system profiles on both the mobile and support station to read user supplied lists of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) and fetch those documents based on URL specific xe2x80x9crecycling periods.xe2x80x9d These and other conventional systems concentrate on improving latency by communicating with stationary servers running special protocols. However, neither of these systems nor any of the prior art advance the issue of monetary cost control nor do they include a xe2x80x9creactive architecturexe2x80x9d that allows user controlled adaptation under various operating conditions. At this time, there is no way to quickly and efficiently make time-money trade-offs that depend on a user""s information needs.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method for making time-money tradeoffs given information needs at the time of accessing a network.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a host, including an information requesting device and a server program, connectable to any of a number of different kinds of networks.
It is a further object of the present invention to allow a person to browse the WWW anytime and anywhere whether or not the person is connected to a continuous, low-cost, high-speed network.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a reactive architecture that supports user-specified adaptation under various operating conditions.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide budget monitoring, conditions for postponement, user customization, and system configuration values that may or may not automatically adapt to the changing conditions of use.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an asynchronous, e-mail style browsing such that users can work disconnected from a cache of documents or can implement a trade-off of communication cost against information needs.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a system for accessing the WWW that is unobtrusive and predictable, in addition to providing graceful degradation of service across increasingly difficult conditions.
These objects are obtained by providing a system for information access over multiple networks. The system includes a host, having a server program and an information requesting device therein, which is connected over any of a number of different types of networks to the Internet and WWW. The server program intercepts requests from the information requesting device before they are passed to the WWW to determine if specific conditions have been met. The server program can be configured to automatically and dynamically set preferences including budgets and time constraints for various means of communications such as over Ethernet or modem.
The server program includes a caching proxy, a user interface server for managing the caching proxy, databases of variables and conditional actions. In addition, a communications manager is provided for managing network connections and informing the system of changes.
A method is provided for information access over multiple network connections. The method includes loading a server program and reconfiguring an information requesting device such that all requests from the information requesting device pass through the server program before being sent to the WWW to determine if time/cost considerations have been met. The method also includes the steps of running the server program on a mobile host, sending a request to the WWW from the information requesting device via the server program, checking whether the request can be satisfied from a cache, checking whether budget criteria have been met and checking whether time limits have been exceeded. Further, the method includes redirecting the request to a user interface page if the original request cannot be satisfied, and notifying a user that the request has been redirected, allowing the user to continue, cancel, or postpone the request.
Another method includes managing time/cost information of requests over multiple network connections in which a budget monitor process mediates between a host requesting information and one of the multiple network connections. The budget monitor, when presented with a request, determines whether it can make a connection to a network subject to the user""s pre-specified budget requirements, such as availability and costs of communication channels, the quality of service of the channels, and the usage and accumulated costs of the channels. If it can, the request proceeds. Otherwise, the user is prompted regarding what type of action to take. The requests for documents can be postponed and then triggered at a future time when the time/cost of retrieval satisfies the user""s requirements. In addition, the method can indicate to the user the time/cost of traversing a hypertext link.
A communication device and method includes a server program having a database for storing a plurality of variables for each of multiple network connections including the state of the network, customization settings and configuration settings. A page alerts a user that one or more variables for a connected network is violated. A user can then continue, cancel or postpone an action depending on the violated variables.